


into the trees with empty hands

by marrieddorks



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Discussion of Abortion, Don't go into this expecting spoopy, Kastor/Jokaste - Freeform, Kingdom politics, M/M, Minor Damen/Jokaste - Freeform, Minor Violence, Witch!Laurent, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:15:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrieddorks/pseuds/marrieddorks
Summary: Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos' betrothed has gone missing.  The Northern Steppes call to him with promise.  The Witch of Vere calls to him with answers.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 136





	into the trees with empty hands

**Author's Note:**

> not beta'd, all mistakes are my own
> 
> happy halloween month everyone! 👻🎃🦇
> 
> sadly, this fic did not take the spooky route i wanted it to. so if you're looking for a scary halloween fic, this is NOT it. i'm sorry. it got away from me. but laurent is a witch with witchy powers. that counts as something, right?
> 
> also, if you could, suspend some disbelief re: travel times. i know logically getting to and from some of these places would take longer, but i couldn't have damen gone from akielos for, like eight months just to see if a witch was real or not.
> 
> title is from hozier's 'in the woods somewhere' because of course it is

As far as Damianos was aware, everyone across the continent knew of the Witch of Vere. But not everyone agreed on what was truth and what was fiction regarding his existence.

Some would say that the Witch is a kind soul, a wielder of magic who uses his potions to heal and his enchantments to bring luck. Some would say that the Witch was colder than a Kemptian winter, a sorcerer who casts curses with a wicked tongue and communicates with the dead through the act of the seance.

A Veretian woman living in the now-Akielon, and rightfully Akielon, province of Delpha had once told a story of the Witch helping mothers and children after the loss of a husband or father in battle. A Patran warrior relayed a tale of the Witch not only stitching up and preventing infection to a wound, but also teaching how one could further patch themselves up should they not have the time or means to travel to him. An Akielon man from the north told of the Witch charming the lands of poor farmers, leading their farms to provide produce enough to feed their families and other people of the land whilst also making plenty a profit for themselves to guarantee their future.

There were other stories of the Witch of Vere, however. There were stories of the Witch eviscerating men with more than just his spells. There were tales of him cursing entire families, damning their line for all of eternity. There were tales of him creating poisons with his books and knowledge, poisons that killed people, animals, that may have killed an entire village. There were tales of young boys coming into his home and never coming back out.

There were even darker, more whispered tales that the Witch had murdered his own father, mother, brother, and uncle, the only family he had ever had.

The Crown Prince of Akielos found many of these stories, these rumors, to be outlandish. Even if it were all true, no one, not even a witch, would be allowed to continue living undisturbed, unhunted, if they had committed such heinous acts. If anything, Damianos had often found the stories to be a great form of entertainment around a fire. But even he was aware how the stories impacted most, how each story, however small, was enough to incite fear in the hearts of those who listened.

Only two things ever spoken of the Witch remained consistent in every story told. The first was of his beauty, which according to all, was such a sight to behold that he could bring any and all to their knees with a blink of his eyes underneath the fan of his lashes. Some rumors went as far to say that he was so beautiful that his own blood was used to make the most effective love potions the world had ever seen.

Some rumors said that he was so beautiful that it was dangerous to be in his presence as he could tempt one to do anything he wished.

But the second thing, the thing that made Damianos wish to believe that this enigmatic being was as real as people said, was that he was powerful. Damianos could desperately use that right now.

***

Never in his life had Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos intended on pursuing a witch. The hunting of evil and magical creatures had been a fun game to play as a child, subjecting one poor friend to chase all the others in order to turn them all into fellow witches. But it was just that: a child’s game. No one would willingly put themselves at the mercy of a true witch.

But, as fate would have it, Damianos found himself with no other choice.

It had been difficult, at first, finding someone who had supposedly met the Witch of Vere. Good or bad, people were often reluctant to admit to having been in contact with a witch. It was even harder in Akielos as the Witch of Vere was an outsider, already considered evil by many due to his proximity to Vere, let alone his deeds. Eventually people talked, they always did, and after asking in the rural lands of Sicyon and Thrace, Damianos had a place to begin.

As the Crown Prince, sneaking out of the palace took some navigating, but once out, his getting around and across the border proved easier than he could have imagined. As a lone traveler, all he had needed was passageway in a merchant’s cart — something provided with gratitude because of the half pound of gold Damianos put in the man’s hand — and he was in Alier where the mountains gave way to jagged land not two days later.

Briefly he worried of Vaskian mountain raiders, but even they would not see much purpose in attacking a man covered in a ragged cloak and owning nothing but a large bag filled with traveling essentials and the sandals on his feet.

His entire journey along the mountain border was rough. For days and for nights he walked, occasionally stealing away in unsuspecting carts at night, roaming a land that was unforgiving. But he had gone this way for a reason, the reason being that unforgiving meant uninhabited.

Even with the sloped and rocky ground that gave way into frigid and frozen soil, Damianos walked quickly and before he knew it, he was in Lys, then Toutaine, and lastly Varenne. And at long last, a five days’ hike to be exact, the Northern Steppes were laid out before him.

With only minor trepidation, he entered the Great Northern Forest.

Unlike his arrival in Alier days earlier, Damianos did not immediately begin walking. First he sat his bag on the ground and retrieved a multitude of things he had packed along for the fear of the bitter cold. Not familiar with winter personally, but knowing of it, Damianos had packed a second cloak that had a hood to cover his head and that fell down to the middle of his calves. It was lined with fur, the same kind of fur that made up the inside of his packed gloves and boots. A quick test showed Damen that he had underestimated the winter for this wasn’t enough. But it would have to do. He was so close.

There were creatures in the Steppes that Damianos had never seen before. During the day, as he trekked along, he came across tiny, thick-furred animals. Some of them were so small that they created shelter in packed snow banks or underground in tiny burrows. All the small ones were white, a camouflage to protect them from the bigger, more dangerous beasts. On Damianos’ first night, he felt lucky to not see one of those beasts. Not knowing them, he had no inkling as to how they would appear, but once, when the moon was highest, he heard them, howling and growling in the distance.

The next morning, after ten days total of travel, he at long last came across the cabin.

The first thing he noticed was the fire roaring inside. It was a proof of life, of someone’s existence, but it also brought forth to Damianos a great rush of envy. What he would give to feel his hands and feet again. There were other things he noticed about it afterward, things like how normal it looked on the outside, like the branches with live blooms hanging by the door, the plants magically living in the snow, or like the well-worn pathway leading up to it, or like the lack of movement inside.

For a moment, Damianos contemplated what would be his best move; he could leave now, set up his own camp in a nearby clearing and rest in order to regain some of his strength, or he could attempt to make contact with the Witch now. His eagerness to see if the stories were true in any capacity took over him though, and he shucked his bag to the ground and took a deep breath.

A village woman in Thrace had told Damianos of what to do once he reached the cabin, should he find it. He felt a bit foolish, but he went about it with as much confidence as he could muster, which, in truth, was quite a lot. Determined steps brought him to the door where he knocked four times before immediately retreating back to the stones that marked the path like a gateway. Once there, he waited a beat before announcing loudly into the air, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide.” From there he bent down to fish through his forgotten bag in order to pull out handfuls of gold. “I have brought gold.”

Damianos waited, fully expecting the door of the cabin to open wide, fully expecting to be face-to-face with the Witch of Vere. But nothing happened. Nothing happened at all.

For an entire hour, Damianos waited patiently for the Witch to come and greet him. For another hour, Damianos waited less patiently.

Unsure of what was going on, Damianos repeated his earlier actions and walked up to the door to knock four times.

“My name is Damianos,” he said once more after retreating back to the stones. “I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold.”

Nothing.

“I have brought much gold,” Damianos continued. “Enough gold to satisfy any Kyros in Akielos and certainly any council member in Vere.”

Still, nothing.

For one more hour, Damianos waited between the stones. He was half-tempted to go and try to open the door anyway, but instinct told him nothing good would come from that. But three hours of standing in the cold was too much and Damianos was weary from his travels. With one last look at the cabin windows which had shown no movement in the time Damianos had stood, he finally left, finding the clearing he had spotted earlier and beginning to set up a makeshift camp.

His own fire started surprisingly easy, and the tent he had manufactured wasn’t pretty but it did its job, and when night came and went, he awoke without answers and a noticeably dwindled food supply from his nearly two weeks of travel.

So he tried again.

“My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold, and much of it.”

For three more days he repeated this ritual, knocking and retreating and announcing and waiting. By the fifth day of standing outside the Witch’s cabin, Damianos’ patience was nearing its end and he was beginning to think he was quite idiotic for believing in such a fairytale.

“My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold, and much of it.”

This time, he said it with clear frustration in his tone, frustration that had him half-heartedly kicking at the stones.

“I have heard your announcement many a time,” a voice sounded out suddenly from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Damianos jumped back from the gate, eyes searching the cabin and the skies, and the voice continued. “Though I find it all quite redundant, I do admire your relentlessness.”

Fumbling, Damianos tossed his bag to the ground and fell to his knees beside it, scrambling inside of it for his gold that he had days earlier quit bringing out. His bare knees were bitten numb by the snow. With his arms outstretched and his eyes still searching, he repeated, “I have brought gold in my request for your assistance.”

“So you have said,” the voice drolled. “I fear, Damianos of Akielos, that you lack understanding of my demands.”

It was easy to get lost listening to the Witch’s voice, honing intently on the clear tone of it, honing intently to its pitch and control.

“You have not made any demands of me,” Damianos said. His arms fell to his sides.

“Do not play a fool. All who find me know of my demands. They are very simple, too: approach, knock four times, return to the gateway, and make an offering of value.”

“I have done all that,” Damianos said after a beat, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I have done all that repeatedly.”

“I know who you are, Damianos. You are no mere Akielon citizen. You are the Prince. Of what value is gold to you?” the voice asked him. It sounded genuinely curious.

“Gold is of value to all.”

“If you can casually give to me as much as you are offering, gold is of little importance to your life. Bring to me something of value.”

Every part of Damianos wanted to argue, but with patience he had demonstrated thus far, he waited to see if the Witch would speak again. When there was no noise beyond the rustling of dead leaves in the trees to accompany Damianos’ loud heartbeat, he made the familiar journey back to his camp to think.

After a restless night of deep contemplation, he had a solution.

It took almost two full days to fashion together his offering. Gold didn’t melt easily and finding something to shape it around proved near impossible. By the time it was completed and cooled with the abundance of snow, Damianos slipped it on.

It wasn’t beautiful, not in any way, but its purpose would be evident.

His seventh day in the forest, Damianos once again approached the unchanged Witch’s cabin. Inside he could see that the very same fire was going strong and it burned within him a necessary conviction. Repeating the ritual for what was hopefully the last time, Damianos walked to the door, knocked four times, went back to the stones, and announced, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought, in offering, my freedom.”

Outstretching his arms from the warm cocoon of his cloak, Damianos bared the cuff shackled to his right wrist.

He had not been certain in the last two days if the Witch was familiar with slave practices across the continent, but with his reputation for knowledge Damianos assumed the message would be clear.

The voice laughed, an unkind laugh that felt mocking. “You liken to extremes, do you not, Prince Damianos?”

“I am desperate,” Damianos answered.

When nothing happened, Damianos felt his patience lose its last hold all the way in his fingertips. “Do you accept or not?”

The door to the cabin opened wide.

***

Inside, the cabin was unnervingly dark.

It was the first thing Damianos noticed, though secondly was the stifling heat. The fire, which had been roaring high the entire time Damianos had stood outside was suddenly nothing but smoldering embers, yet the remaining heat was almost painful in its relief on Damianos’ skin, stinging like a burn that seeped all the way into his bones.

Damianos had never given thought to what a witch’s cabin should look like, but if he ever would have he definitely would not have imagined this. The entire room smelt of lavender and cinnamon, and fresh herbs were gathered in clay pots that sat on the sills of the windows, drowning the blue hue of the streaming moonlight in greenery. Rugs lined the rough wooden floors and books of all kinds littered the tables and shelves, the only clutter in an area otherwise so organized.

But the cabin’s almost welcoming appearance didn’t take away that there was something to be fearful of in here. Damianos startled when the cabin door slammed shut from somewhere behind him, done so with no force from another physical person. Then came the unmistakable click of the lock.

“How desperate are you?” the voice of the Witch asked, and it sounded as though it was only inches behind Damianos. Damianos whipped around, eyes searching even though they hadn’t quite adjusted to the dark, but all he found was the blank slate of wood that made the door from which he had entered. “You have offered me yourself. Is the significance of that lost on you? It is near the equivalent of offering the devil your soul.”

“Near the equivalent, but not exact in its likeness,” Damianos said. The voice hummed thoughtfully.

“If it is not exact, then you must have only heard the good things about me.”

“I have heard many things about you,” said Damianos, “but I am to be King one day. To rush into a decision based upon only the words of others could be detrimental. I would much rather make decisions upon my own observances.”

“But if you are here then you must believe the words of someone, yes? After all, my ego is not so large to assume that knowledge of my being has crossed into the barbaric lands of Akielos unscathed.”

Movement caught Damianos’ eye, but it was an animal of some sort, one that scurried underneath a table by the far wall.

“For how long are we to speak in circles?” Damianos asked instead. His finger was tapping incessantly at his thigh.

“However long I wish. You offered me your freedom.”

There was silence, and Damianos took it as opportunity to continue to observe. The animal that he had spotted emerged its head from underneath the table it had disappeared under. It was a white darling cat with brown marbled in its fur. It had large blue eyes.

“Tell me what you have heard of me. Then tell me what you believe. Should your answers be adequate, we will continue on to the answers you seek.”

Damianos turned from where the cat was still sitting, watching him, and faced instead the emptiness of the room.

“I have heard many things about you, Witch of Vere. I have heard praises sung of your good deeds and your kindness. I have also heard awful things. I have heard stories of young boys walking into this very cabin and never leaving it again. I have heard of girls cut open on your dining table, their children taken violently from their wombs. I have heard you were cold enough to murder your own family without regret. I have heard many things about you.”

The words were honest as they tore themselves from Damianos’ throat. When the voice did not speak after a moment though, he continued.

“Only two things have remained consistent in all the accounts I have heard, and those are the two things I choose to believe. The first is that you are beautiful. There are stories, implications, that have followed that, however. Stories that you bathe in the blood of virgins to maintain your youthfulness. But it is the second as to why I am here, for I have heard from all that you are the most powerful witch to have walked the continent since Agnesot of the Artisan Empire nearly four hundred years ago.”

For the first time since entering the cabin, Damianos heard a noise that was not the voice speaking nor the crackling of the embers burning hot in the hearth. He heard the creak of wood from a singular staircase that ascended near the very hearth and he watched with bated breath as a figure approached.

Immaculate boots caught the moonlight with their shine and it was something that took Damianos aback for it was not what he expected from a witch, or anyone this secluded from the rest of society. Up, Damianos took in the fine material of the pants, the intricate laces, winding their way up and down the lean body’s torso and arms, and the collar of the shirt and the length of the sleeves, both of which covered nearly all skin in a shield to protect it from onlookers’ eyes. Finally, facing forward, Damianos set sight on the Witch’s face.

Tales of the Witch’s beauty were true. Damianos felt horribly aware of his own shaky intake of breath, of the slackness of his own mouth, but he was impossible to stop it. The Witch’s skin was a near match to the unblemished porcelain of the snow surrounding them outside. It was accompanied by ice colored eyes that were unreadable in expression, yet framed with curled lashes that brushed the tops of cold-flushed cheeks whenever the Witch blinked. The flush matched the color of the pink fullness of his mouth, and both things were the only contrast to his otherwise cool-toned, sharp features. In fact, those two things softened him into something almost precious. Or perhaps it was the halo of gold surrounding his head, his hair shining like the sun on the waters near Isthima.

Damianos took an involuntary step forward before catching himself.

“Well?” the Witch mused, blue eyes never leaving the Prince’s face.

“You must bathe in the blood of virgins,” Damianos managed to mutter. He swore the Witch’s eyes gleamed at that.

“I am not concerned with one’s number of sexual encounters,” said the Witch. “My concerns lie in other matters, such as the Prince of Akielos’ presence so very far from home.”

“Yes, it has been a long journey,” Damianos agreed, still searching that beautiful face.

“How are you taking to the cold?” the Witch asked. He was speaking as though they were friends, as though there was not a strangeness to this all so present it was palpable in the air surrounding them both.

“The snow is beautiful. I am not sure I enjoy the freezing of my limbs, however.”

The Witch made a noise and he walked toward the cat. “I do suppose the snow is beautiful. I am quite accustomed to it. But it brings with it a peace, does it not? I do not know what I would do if I were to be surrounded by the warmth of sunshine instead.”

“Akielos will be void of sunshine if I do not receive answers soon,” said Damianos. The feeling shifted as the conversation returned to its proper track.

The Witch circled him and Damianos stood very still. Briefly, he thought the Witch was akin to the nameless beasts he heard growling in the forest at night, and Damianos was one of those small white creatures in the vulnerability of an open clearing.

“Void of sunshine? My, what cynicism. Do tell me why. Do tell me how. Such a thing cannot happen in as short a time as the turning of the moon.”

“But it can and it shall,” Damianos started. “My betrothed has gone missing. If she is not found, if she is not returned, I fear Akielos will face terrible hardship. I fear, worst of all, its entire structure could fall apart beneath us.”

“You put quite a value of importance on one woman.”

Damianos interrupted the conversation he had started. “Please allow me to call you something. I cannot address you as the Witch, but it is all I know. What is your name?” He was dizzy with the conversation already, dizzy with the weight of his own tongue in his mouth.

“Unlike you, Prince, I know the power of gifting things away. I am not so quick to make a deal with a devil,” the Witch chastised, but he was smiling. It was a cold smile. It was cruel. “Continue.”

“The wedding has been scheduled since the week of her birth. As it was written and as it was signed, our wedding was to be on the day of Midsummer, when the sun spent longest in the sky, and in the year in which the five planets aligned. That day is in two months. But she is not in Akielos. She is not anywhere. She vanished in the daylight three months ago and her father is ready to begin a war for her.”

“A war against Akielos?” asked the Witch.

“Not as of now. The man is a great noble from Aegina. It is one of our farming provinces. But should he wish to go to war, my father will support him. He has been raging about Vere and the Vaskian tribes for weeks.” Damianos started to pace. The Witch was watching him. He allowed Damianos to continue on. “There are many things that could have happened, but I need to know the truth. I cannot, will not, engage my armies in a war over one woman unless I have absolute proof she has been taken, as some of the nefarious rumors have implied. But should I refuse, I fear something even worse than a war with Vere or Vask; I fear civil war. Her father is popular in the north and if there was ever such an area to begin unrest with the capital...” Damianos looked pointedly at the Witch. “I must figure out the truth or I will have no kingdom to rule.”

“You sound far more invested in the welfare of your kingdom than in your betrothed,” the Witch said. “Is she such a hideous prospect?”

“She is beautiful. But her beauty does not matter. Our betrothal was political and she is political. I once thought…” Damianos trailed again, but he shook himself out of going down that path.

“She is political,” the Witch started curiously, “and you are more a romantic. You wanted to love her, and her love you in turn, when you got married.”

“Yes.”

“Why would you think I have answers about your betrothed?” the Witch then asked with a different kind of curiosity.

“Initially I believed such a thing for there were rumors she came to you. Each was different in its reasoning for why she would come here, but it was something I heard from several of my people,” Damianos admitted. “But upon questioning those people further, and finding more people to question along my journey here, I no longer believe that. There are many that confirm she traveled by the Ellosean Sea. She could not have gotten here traveling in such a way.”

“That’s not true, Prince,” the Witch said. “If she took the sea, she could have landed in the province of Marches in Vere before traveling innocuously along Vere’s border, by the palace in Arles, and into the Great Northern Forest. She very much could have been one of the many virgins I bathed in the blood of.”

“She is no virgin.”

“You said she was political, however. By what do you mean?” the Witch asked.

“She seeks power. It is the only reason I believe she would not abandon our betrothal willingly. To be wed to me, to be the Queen of Akielos, would be too much for her to pass up on. And yet…” Damianos trailed one last time, “I am uncertain of everything.”

“Prince Damianos of Akielos,” the Witch said, his tone indicating to Damianos’ ears that this conversation was coming to a close. “We will begin the process of trying to answer your questions at another time. But until then, I suppose I shall give you menial tasks to complete.”

“Tasks?”

“You are mine, are you not”

***

Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos had worked hard for many years on all things related to battle. But never in his life had he had to do basic chores for a household. The next morning, upon awakening in his campsite in the forest, Damianos had stood outside the Witch’s cabin for some time contemplating if he was to still knock. The Witch answered that query for him, opening the cabin door as he had yesterday to bid Damianos inside. From there he had given the Prince a list to complete; tend to the plants, gather and chop firewood from the forest, feed the cat (which Damianos had deemed to be the devil the Witch kept bringing up in conversation).

While Damianos completed such tasks, the Witch was nowhere in sight. In fact, Damianos was certain the Witch was not in the cabin at all. Still, Damianos worked and when evening came about, the Witch reappeared with two gifts for Damianos.

“You may sleep here,” the Witch told him as he began preparing a hot meal for the two of them. “I know this is not your normal standard of accommodation, but I truly cannot have a future king dying of starvation or frostbite whilst owned by me. It would be dreadful for that to get about.”

Damianos could not tell if he was joking or not, but he was grateful nonetheless.

The sofa near the hearth was surprisingly comfortable, though Damianos wondered if that was due to his weeks of sleeping on the cold forest floor, but when he awoke he was startled by two things. The first was the feeling of waking and not knowing where one was, and it rocketed his heartrate until memory returned. The second was the feeling of weight on his chest, just above his ribcage, that made it difficult to take a deep breath. That was resolved quickly, however, as Damianos opened his eyes and found the cat sitting on him and staring unblinkingly at the subtle expansion of his breaths leaving his open mouth. Damianos jolted awake and the cat meowed as it was forced to move, to jump away and onto the ground.

Damianos stumbled as he tried to stand to full attention with dignity, and that’s when he saw something that threw him into a near panic. In the hearth was a pot and in the pot was a ladle that was stirring the pot’s contents all on its own. Damianos turned his head like a dog trying to make sense of a human’s incomprehensible jabbering.

“This trick was not intended to evoke fear,” the Witch said from the table near the window. Damianos turned to give the Witch his attention and found him with a book whose writing was gibberish to Damianos’ eyes and a steaming cup with a spoon doing the same trick as the pot with the ladle.

“I am not afraid,” said Damianos. His voice was gruff.

The Witch gestured to the empty seat across from and it was only with minor hesitancy that Damianos accepted. Then nothing happened.

“Do you suppose your drink will simply appear before you?” the Witch asked, his eyes never leaving his book.

“I thought,” Damianos fumbled, “I thought that —”

“That I would get it for you as you have never had to do such a thing on your own? Oh, my dear brute, you are forgetting your position here already. You may fetch it yourself.”

So Damianos did. And when the Witch tasked him with getting more wood, Damianos did that as well. After another day of doing work, the sun set and the Witch began supper. It was then that Damianos asked, “What of my betrothed?”

“In time,” said the Witch.

The next morning, Damianos’ third day since entering the cabin, began much as the day before. He made it to noon before the lack of communication wore thin each of his fried nerves. He couldn’t stop thinking of Akielos.

“I do not understand you,” Damianos said loudly after having ground up spices for nearly an hour. “I have done all you have asked with no complaint. I have offered you my very self and yet all you have done is require me to clean and fetch us both hot tea. I am beginning to believe your magic does not extend beyond stirring stews and reading in languages others cannot understand.”

The Witch looked at him steadily from where he was rifling through a stack of unrecognizable papers.

Then it started.

It started slowly, crept in like a storm front. He felt it first in the center of his chest. It was the same feeling he had felt when the cat had sat on him that first morning, like a weight preventing a deep breath. Then he felt it in his head, an ache behind his eyeballs. The feeling in his chest swelled, moving until it took over his entire body. Blackness blurred the edges of his vision and it was without fault that he fell to his knees, hands grasping at his throat as if he could pull the blockage from himself, as if he could push air back into his lungs.

He was going to die.

Horrible noises were leaving him, wounded sounds, and he could barely make sense of the Witch’s figure looming over him, his blond hair hanging like the invisible rope tight around Damianos’ neck as he lost his ability to breathe.

Then, like nothing ever happened, the feeling stopped and Damianos fell forward even more, gasping in broken sounds as air returned to his body.

“You would do best not to insult me, Prince,” the Witch spat. The last word left his mouth as though the action was venomous. “Now finish with your tasks.”

The Witch disappeared, exiting the cabin, the electricity of his power still lingering in the air, and it took Damianos several minutes to pull himself up to his feet. When he did, he saw that while proving his power the Witch destroyed several items in his own home. Books and papers were strewn haphazardly, all far from where they had been sitting, and several pots that the plants sat in were shattered, the soil all over the floor and other surfaces on which they rested.

Hours later, when the Witch returned, Damianos’ head was still somewhat fuzzy.

While the Witch had been gone, Damianos had done his best to restore everything back to its place as well as begin on his tasks should the Witch wish to direct his rage once again. But when the Witch came back he barely glanced at the room or at Damianos. He went straight for the table by the window instead and, with a sweep of his hand, pushed everything to the edge where the table met the wall.

“Sit,” he demanded.

Though each part of him screamed to keep distance between himself and the Witch, Damianos listened and sat himself across from the Witch at the table. He reminded himself silently and none-too-gently to hold his tongue. He watched raptly as the Witch gently untied the strings of a black velvet bag. From it he drew out a deck of cards. The cards were blue, the kind of blue Damianos had only ever seen in the meadows of Karthas, or perhaps the very blue of the Witch’s eyes. On the cards’ backs was a symbol, but of what Damianos could not tell. He could only see golden spikes.

With an elegance, the Witch placed the deck of cards on the far left end of the table. Then, with his magic, he spread them out in an arch until the cards were just overlapping at the edges.

The symbol became clear to Damianos in that moment: a starburst.

“What are these?” he asked.

“These are cards,” the Witch answered simply.

Damianos had to bite down on his tongue so as to not reply to that. He left himself with an achingly familiar twitch of annoyance at the Witch’s evasive nonanswers instead. “Yes, I can see that. But what is their significance?”

“These are cards about you.”

Fast as lightning, Damianos’ eyes went to the Witch’s face. For his part, however, the Witch was not paying him any mind. His blue eyes were focused solely on the display of cards, on the closeness of their edges to Damianos’ own fingertips.

“How could you have cards about me?”

“I have cards about all peoples,” the Witch said. “Even myself.”

“And what do your cards say?” Damianos could not resist asking.

“Telling you would mean nothing. Not yet. You do not even know which cards are yours.”

“Then pick them out or let me pick them so you can tell me.” His fingertips that were only inches away from the cards went to snatch at them, but the Witch physically slapped them away. It did not hurt, but it brought on a kind of shock. It was the first time they had touched and Damianos wasn’t surprised the Witch’s hands were cold.

“You cannot just pick the cards,” the Witch said. “They pick you, Prince.”

The two of them stared at once another. Again, Damianos’ chest began to feel tight and he almost began to yell out at the Witch, to ask what he did to warrant a repeat performance, but he realized quickly it was a nervousness and not the Witch at all.

“Now,” the Witch began again, “there are three cards lying here about you and your betrothed. One card is about your past, one about your present, and one about your future. You need to think hard about your betrothed. Think about everything you know about her, think of everything she has done, think of every feeling she has ever evoked from you. Think about everything about her and hold your hands above the cards. Yes, like that. Listen to them. There are three and they will find you.”

At first Damianos felt absurd, both hands floating aimlessly over the blue and gold of the cards, but, suddenly, a sense of calm overtook him, washed over him and unwound the tightness of his chest. Through his palms he could feel something radiating, calling for his touch. With as gentle a hand as he could find, he extracted one card, then another, then one more.

“Listen to them before you hand them to me,” the Witch said, whispered as to not break the magic in the air. “The order matters. The direction matters. The cards will tell you.”

When Damianos finally handed the cards over, the calm rushed away from him in the same way his air had earlier left his lungs, and Damianos held his breath as the Witch flipped the three cards over so that the starbursts were tableside.

Of the three cards, one was upside down, its figure facing the Witch and not Damianos. It was on Damianos’ right and it showed a man on a throne. The graying beard on his face reminded Damianos of his own father and the scepter in his hand gleamed gold in the light. Its text said ‘The Emperor’ in shimmering letters. Next to it, in the middle, was a card with an Ektoryn. In myth, Ektoryns were said to be the speakers of the gods. In the case of this card, the Ektoryn appeared to be Gilead, the one that announced fate with the declaration of a trumpet. The card said ‘Judgement.’ It was the final card, or the first card, though that made Damianos suck in a breath. Typhon, the Devil, could never be a good sign. With horns and fire decorating the intimidating figure, Damianos could not see how.

“Do not fret so heavily over the Devil,” the Witch told him with such ease that Damianos’ shoulders relaxed without his acknowledgement. “He is not what concerns me here.”

“What do they all mean?”

It felt as if these cards suddenly held the entire future of his kingdom and Damianos felt such a horrid feeling that he desperately needed alleviated with the Witch’s words.

“We shall start with the Devil to ease your mind, Prince,” the Witch said, delicate hands pushing the card and its figure closer to Damianos. “The Devil, when facing you, is often there to signify entrapment. You two were betrothed at birth, were you not?” Damianos nodded. “This betrothal, paired with her political motivation and your more romantic inclination, have led the two of you to feel in such a way. The Devil, here to your left, is the past, showing you how the two of you came to be.”

With the same delicate hand, the Witch pulled the Devil back toward himself and pushed forward instead the Ektoryn, Gilead.

“Facing you, the card of Judgement is the signifier of self-reflection. Similarly to the Devil, Judgement shows a changing point you both had at a very recent time in your lives. You trailed off once about how you perhaps thought a romantic attraction was possible with the two of you, but something changed that, didn’t it?” Damianos nodded again. “Something of the same significance must have occurred within her as well.” Then, almost as a warning, the Witch continued. “Make no mistake of the implication of this card. While self-reflection sounds like a good thing, it does not always have to be about bettering oneself. In some cases, it could be a way of finding how to get ahead with what one has.”

Damianos took in the open and simple face of the Ektoryn, and he took in its outstretched hands that were searching for answers. He saw himself in that image and thought, yes, he could see what the Witch meant.

“But this card,” the Witch interrupted his thoughts, pushing the last card to Damianos, “this card brings me great trepidation, Prince.”

Looking at the Witch with concern, Damianos asked, “Why? What does it mean?”

“Upside down like this, the Emperor is tyrannical. With a position in royalty such as your own, Damianos, you can understand the fear of tyranny.”

The two of them fell quiet. Damianos waited for the Witch to continue to explain the Emperor as he had explained the Devil and the Ektoryn, but the Witch was only staring at the cards. His blond brows were furrowed together, his blue eyes scanning, when suddenly he sat up straight with rigid shoulders and shuffled the cards together as though that could hide what he had just realized or seen.

“What is it? What did you find?” Damianos asked quickly. His hands were gripping the edge of the table.

“You will know,” the Witch mumbled. “You will know in time. Probably faster than you’d like.”

Fury filled Damianos’ veins then. In time, in time, he thought bitterly to himself, wanting desperately to lash out, to sweep all the cards onto the floor, but he didn’t. When he finally felt as though he wouldn’t throw a punch in his anger, Damianos looked up only to find the Witch watching him, looking amused.

“You do quite well at reeling in your most volatile of emotions,” the Witch said, and Damianos wanted to hit him all over again. “But there is one more card for you. Think of yourself as this one finds you. Think of yourself and no other creature.”

There was an ache in Damianos’ jaw from clenching it so tight. The muscle was twitching, a striking feeling, and it was then Damianos realized his fingernails were biting half-moons into his palms. He watched with dark eyes as the Witch finished shuffling the deck of cards and once again placed them in a gentle arch for Damianos’ eyes.

“There is one for you,” the Witch repeated, “and only one.”

Concentrating on what lay before him, Damianos focused on his breathing, focused on settling it, focused on the rhythmic _boom ba-boom boom_ of his heart in his ears. Then, like before, he lifted his hands and waited for the card to call to him.

When it found him, he handed the Witch his card and the Witch flipped it over. Damianos laughed acridly and almost expectantly at the image it beheld.

“What does this mean for me? Beyond the obvious, that is.”

“What is the obvious?” the Witch asked him. Damianos had expected the Witch to laugh, had expected that cruel smile he had seen more than once to appear, but the Witch looked at him with a kind of curiosity instead, something entirely new on his face. It made Damianos’ stomach flip.

“The Fool,” Damianos said, gesturing somewhat wildly at it. “What else could it mean but I am unfit for my position? That my journey here was useless and unnecessary?”

“So that is what you believe it to mean? That is not what it means at all.” The Witch held the card between two long fingers an examined it with a light behind his eyes. “People so often become obsessed with the names of these cards that they do not take into consideration the meaning at all. The Devil, as example, emits such a fear that it sends people into a panic before they come to the realization that it is not an inherently evil card. The Fool, facing you as he is now, is a lovely card to draw.”

“What does it mean?” Damianos asked, softer this time.

“The Fool means innocence. It means you are to start on a new journey. Whatever that may be.”

***

After the reading of the cards, the Witch went about making more tea and hot broth for dinner. It was silent in the cabin, at least between Damianos and the Witch, and as the Witch busied himself Damianos petted absently at the cat that liked to nestle into the crook of his elbow.

As he ate, Damianos couldn’t get the images of the cards out of his mind. Like a nightmare, the Devil, the Ektoryn, the Emperor, and the Fool all flashed behind his eyelids like some unstoppable force couldn’t help but replay them over and over again

“You’re aware I realized something whilst looking at your card of the Emperor, yes?” the Witch asked after hours of quiet. The question brought Damianos out of his own head and, just like earlier, he nodded. “I have a confession, Prince.”

Expectantly, Damianos waited, wanting to know what had the Witch so visibly uncomfortable after having read the Emperor. What he said brought on the most conflicting set of feelings Damianos had ever experienced at one time.

“Your initial assumptions of your betrothed’s disappearance were correct for she was here but just over a month ago.”

The confession startled Damianos so much that he almost fell forward, words tearing themselves out of his mouth before he could stop them. But the Witch only talked over him, beckoning him for silence.

“I did not realize it was her, not until I was looking at your cards. She did not offer her place of origin and I did not ask, only assuming by her coloring and conduct that she was Veretian. It appears now, however, that she was Akielon.”

“Start from the beginning,” Damianos said. “Please.”

“Yes, yes. But you need to sit down. I fear you are not prepared for what I am about to say.”

They both sat on the sofa in front of the hearth and momentarily Damianos got lost in how the warm glow of the fire changed the Witch’s appearance so.

“Your betrothed, Jokaste, arrived outside of my cabin early in the day. She was quiet, offering me no extra information and asking none of me. It appeared at first as though this was going to be like any other exchange of services and goods, but it was when the pain settled in that she began to ramble. She damned herself, she said she was not careful enough. After several minutes of going on in such a fashion, she began to shake as she said she was afraid she would lose everything with such a mistake.”

“When the pain settled in?” Damianos repeated, wide-eyed. “Why was she in pain?”

“Some of the stories you have heard of me are true, Prince. When asked, I do rid women of children they cannot bring into this world, whatever their reason. That is why your betrothed was here.”

The ground crumbled underneath Damianos’ feet.

It didn’t literally, of course, but his entire being felt like it was impossibly falling into an abyss of uncertainty. Words escaped him in his fall.

“I came to the understanding that her soon-to-be was powerful, but I never would have jumped to the conclusion that they were a prince. Was the child yours?”

Damianos looked into the fire. “No. My father ordered her out of my bed a year ago, for propriety’s sake. He did not want us siring a bastard, even with the intention of wedding. Best to avoid any kind of scandal.”

“I fear she did not seem to have the same kind of preservation in mind,” the Witch said.

The room grew quiet, Damianos processing and the Witch allowing him to do so. It wasn’t a hurt Damianos was feeling, he concluded quite quickly. Jokaste was beautiful, was intelligent, but the draw of it all was that she was to be his Queen. They had melded together, carnally, in those earliest of days, seeing each other only when the moon was high, and by morning she’d be gone and Damianos would think nothing of it. Yet, this was a betrayal. It wasn’t as though this was the situation of his father and mother, where they were loyal to one another for a decade before it became evident Egeria would not be able to bring to life an heir. Only then did his father begin his relationship with his mistress, resulting in the birth of Kastor. No, this wasn’t that; Jokaste didn’t even give their marriage a chance.

“Do you know where she is now?” Damianos asked after minutes of that quiet.

“I offered for her stay here as she needed to recover. She declined, citing a place she knew she could seek refuge as she rested. I know not where that place is.”

“Can you find out?” Damianos asked.

The Witch sighed. “I can. It will take but an hour. However, I must advise against it.”

“Why?”

“Nothing good ever rises from emotions such as your current own,” the Witch said, sounding almost as though speaking from experience.

“Finding her is not about me. It is about preventing war. If I can bring her back to Akielos, show to her father that her leaving was of her own doing and not of Patras, Vask, Vere, and most definitely anyone in Akielos, he will have no reason to continue his push for violence. I will not have to lose any of my men.”

The Witch stared at Damianos’ face. Up close like this, Damianos could see the reflection of the fire in the Witch’s blue eyes. Damianos could see that the Witch had recently wetted his lips for they shined.

“What will come of her in her return to Akielos?”

“She will probably be exiled. My father will not take her conceiving with another man, not after the signing of our betrothal since birth, lightly.”

The Witch stared a minute more. “Come. This will take some time.”

It was fascinating, watching the Witch prepare to use his power. The first thing he did was gather ingredients. He plucked leaves off of a rowan tree twig and crushed them, the mortor and pestle granites meticulously rasping against one another. From the leaves green leaked and it was only when the leaves were but a mush of wetness that the Witch added a red powder from a jar on the desk. Together the two created a paste, a muck of sorts that the Witch scraped off to one pile in the mortor.

Then, with expert fingers, the Witch snipped off a line of twine from a roll and began a new preparation of leaves and herbs. Damianos didn’t recognize most of them. Some were long, predominantly stems with tiny buds or leaves decorating their length, while others were shorter, fuller plants with large leaves and even some flowers. One flower was gold. If slipped behind an ear, or if tucked into a plait of braids, the flower would blend perfectly with the Witch’s hair.

When the twine was tied, the plants secured, the Witch stood and opened a cabinet above the desk. Inside, Damianos spotted a large stack of papers, so large it nearly touched the top of the cabinet, and stuffed in beside it was a book. Damianos assumed the Witch would reach for the book, but he didn’t; instead he pulled at one of the papers lowest in the pile.

It was a map of the continent.

It was written in Veretian, its _Achelos_ almost startling on the page. The Witch spread it out flat on the table in front of both himself and Damianos. Raptly, Damianos watched as the Witch scooped the paste from the mortor into his hand and began to spread it all around the border of the map. The Witch then grabbed the bundle he had created and stood.

“Descendre.”

The bundle burst into flames. Damianos jumped back, the chair he was sitting in raking loudly on the rough wooden floors. He went to look at the Witch, to ask what was happening, what this would do, but when he looked the Witch’s beautiful blue eyes were entirely black from the pupils to the once-whites. Damianos stayed silent.

Gently and unhurriedly, the Witch placed the fiery bundle at one of the corners of the map. When he did so, the map also began to burn, but it did not burn as paper often does, the flame climbing to consume from the point of first touch. No, instead the map began to burn solely along the border where the paste was smeared.

Lowly, the Witch began to speak in a language both familiar and not. Damianos recognized some of the words and in turn recognized the language. It was the language of the Artisan Empire, a language dead for three hundred years. Yet here, in this cabin, the language was alive, and it brought magic with it. The flames that were controlled to dance the path of the border began to move across the map’s entire surface. But it wasn’t burning it all into ash. It was simply moving toward something.

When the Witch was done speaking and the flames were done crawling, all that was left of the map was a tiny section of the northern part of the province of Ver-Vassel in Vask.

“She is here.”

It made sense. The Vaskian tribes were predominantly women, warriors that would welcome a woman into their midst without much apprehension. It also was one of the most difficult places for Damianos to go to. Still, the certainty, the knowledge of it all had Damianos immediately eager. He wanted to deliver peace to his kingdom and that meant delivering Jokaste to both of their fathers.

“You truly must be descended from the gods,” Damianos said to the Witch. “I do not know how to repay you.”

“You have done all that was asked of you,” the Witch said.

“It does not feel like enough. This solves everything. This prevents war. Will you take coin or gold? Do you need coin or gold?”

“I will not and do not. You offered me your freedom and I took it. Now it is restored to you alongside this knowledge. All I ask of you now is to be wise. Should this take a turn, I fear for the entire continent.”

Damianos’ eagerness faded some at those words, his face taking on an open display of confusion. “Should this take a turn? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I believe you are looking at this too simply. The Emperor. I think there is more to this than what you’re seeing,” the Witch said.

“What else could it be?”

“That, Prince, not even a spell could tell me.”

There wasn’t much to say or do after that. The Witch seemed content to speak in circles and riddles and Damianos was more than ready to trudge out into the snow to begin his second journey, this time across the mountains before going back to Akielos. Though it was dark out, the sun would be rising in a few hours and Damianos didn’t have time to wait. He packed together his bag, donned his warm cloak and boots, and went to the cabin door. Before opening it to the snowy exterior he turned to the Witch and found him watching with a look of contemplation.

“I ask one last thing of you,” Damianos said. The Witch raised one delicate brow.

“It may cost you.”

Damianos couldn’t help but smile. “Since you won’t allow me to thank you with anything tangible, let me thank you personally.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What is your name?” Damianos asked back in response. “If I know it I can then thank you personally.”

The Witch smiled too, not a cruel smile this time, but a smile that did something wonderful to his mouth. But even with that smile, Damianos thought for a moment that the Witch wouldn’t give away that secret still. He was wrong though.

“Laurent.”

***

War had been prevented upon Damianos’ return to Akielos with Jokaste in tow, yet the kingdom had still fallen into shambles.

Theomedes, Damianos’ father, had been furious and his furiousness caused a domino effect of fury across every province of Akielos. As Damianos had expected with a civil war, the south was filled with rage at Jokaste’s infidelity and the north believed the south to be unjust in that rage. That feeling from the north only intensified when Theomedes immediately cancelled the wedding and ordered Jokaste into the cells of the palace of Ios to await trial for her exile.

“There’s not even going to be a trial!” Jokaste’s father had screamed. “Her fate was sealed the moment your son forcibly dragged her to you, crying over his broken heart.”

“Her fate was sealed the moment she spread her legs for another man,” Theomedes said calmly. His hands had clenched the arm rests of the throne.

Tension only had gotten worse when the southern provinces of Kesus and Mellos brought forth the daughters of nobles, vying for a new betrothal contract.

There were other problems beyond the obvious, however, problems Damianos hadn’t anticipated in any regard. The first was his father’s repeated fury aimed at him upon confessing he did not want a betrothed at all. Though the betrothal to Jokaste had been planned, it had never been a topic of conversation among the household of the palace. Damianos had always assumed his father arranged the betrothal because it was what he was expected to do. Yet Damianos’ innocuous profession of “I would like to wait to marry until my time to be king draws nearer,” had been met with near-contempt. The second thing was his father’s illness which had began in the weeks Damianos had been away from home. The King was weak, fatigued and coughing and unable to keep more than bone broth and tea in his stomach for an extended period of time.

“Now is not the time I need your strong head rammed down to defy me,” Theomedes had told him on the second day since his return, just after Damianos had said what he needed to about another betrothal. “Your time as king may be but around the corner, my son. We must prepare for the future now.”

“Let us focus on you, and the you in the present instead of the maybes of the future,” Damianos had pleaded. “You will recover.”

“You are now speaking of maybes.”

As of today, Damianos had now been back in Akielos for over a week and the chaos continued around him at a more settled pace. He decided he was finally ready to face Jokaste.

Their duel journey back to Akielos had been silent. Jokaste hadn’t appeared surprised when he turned up at the outskirts of the Vaskian tribe she had taken refuge with, and she came willingly, hands bound and everything, and not bothering to even ask how he had found her. On the evening of their return, Theomedes had her taken to the cells and she had been there since, left alone except for the guards at the cell’s entrance.

As he descended the steps, Damianos was struck by how little time he had spent in the cells of his own palace. All in all, he guessed that was probably a good thing, but it meant he couldn’t take his eyes off of the damp stone walls and floors, of the slivers of light peering in at odd places, for it was all new. The guards at the entrance bowed deeply at Damianos’ approach before moving out of the way in a soldier’s march.

There, alone on a bench in a cell, was Jokaste.

Her hair was tied up out of her face and her dress was wet at the hem. Still, she looked effortless and she smiled warmly at Damianos’ presence. Then, with an appreciative gaze, she looked him up and down.

“I am quite the damned fool, aren’t I?” she asked.

Instead of bringing to the surface a kind of regret, her words only brought with them a memory of what the Witch — what Laurent — had said: _“It appeared at first as though this was going to be like any other exchange of services and goods, but it was when the pain settled in that she began to ramble. She damned herself, she said she was not careful enough. After several minutes of going on in such a fashion, she began to shake as she said she was afraid she would lose everything with such a mistake.”_

“Why did you do it?” Damianos asked her. “It’s not like you to be so careless, and especially but months away from the wedding.”

Jokaste kept her smile as she leaned back on the bench, palms flat behind her, legs extended in front of her, and breasts purposefully lifted, making her figure all the more alluring. “You not in my bed made me restless.”

Damianos ran his tongue across his teeth. “I don’t quite believe that. You’ve never had any difficulty entertaining yourself through other pursuits in the past.”

“I don’t think entertainment, or a lack thereof, was the problem, Damianos. Only perhaps that my entertainment got away from me. For what it’s worth, none of this was ever my intent.”

Neither of them had much more to say.

That night, Damianos dreamed of Jokaste’s hands reaching beyond the bars of the cell and grabbing him. He was certain the dream would have continued, would have grown into a nightmare no matter the direction the struggle took, but he was awakened by the feeling of a presence in his room. His eyes opened, immediately looking to find his sword, its blade sheathed and its handle shining, but a voice spoke out, “Don’t think about it,” and Damianos turned over in a hurry to peer at the figure.

“Laurent,” he breathed, heart beating fast in his chest. He willed it to slow down. “What are you doing here?”

In a way with which Damianos was somewhat familiar, Laurent stayed silent. He was bathed in the moon from Damianos’ open balcony that overlooked the sea, and its light from behind him shadowed his face. Unlike how the fire of the hearth had made his hair golden, the light from the moon made it appear white, looking much like the enigmatic figure the stories of him made him to be. He was still dressed in the same tight-laced clothes he had worn in the cabin and the salty wind from the ocean made his hair and the ends of his laces dance. For the smallest of moments Damianos wondered if he was still dreaming.

He was going to ask, in the silence, how Laurent had gotten by his guards, but, as though Laurent was reading his mind, he beat him to it. “Your guards are useless.”

Damianos pushed himself to sit up. “What are you doing here?”

“The entire continent has caught news of Akielos’ current predicament. They’re all looking for the weak spot to strike.”

His words and his presence still confused Damianos. “What of it? Akielos is plenty strong to take on the armies of Vere, Vask, or Patras. A war is not ideal, it is why I came to you in the first place, but if it happens, Akielos can handle it.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. But it’s not just Vere, Vask, and Patras looking. I hadn’t been lying when I said that I believed there was more to this than what you were seeing. Things are not alright in your kingdom, Damianos. Bringing Jokaste back may have only brought the war on faster.”

Laurent turned and walked out onto the balcony overlooking the sea and when nothing else happened Damianos knew he was intended to follow. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and held the sheet tight around his waist as he walked out onto the balcony as well. The night air felt refreshing on his skin, cooling it from its sleep-warmed state. Laurent was waiting for him, sitting on the stone railing. Now Damianos could see his face and he swore the Witch’s cheeks were flushed red. He wondered if it was from the Akielon heat.

“Do as you did the first time and find three cards about you and Jokaste,” Laurent said, getting out a familiar blue and gold starburst deck of cards.

“Would it be any different than it had been weeks ago?”

“It can change always. Now that your past is known, it is time for what’s next. Three cards.”

After a deep breath, Damianos did just as he had last time and, like then, he felt his three cards call out to him, their energy tangible, their powerful intention clear. He plucked them from the pile and handed them to Laurent slowly. The Witch kept his eyes trained on the reflective gold and he himself took in a deep breath before flipping over the first card.

To Damianos’ left he began and the card was achingly familiar for no one could forget the face of Gilead. The second card, the one in the middle, was also achingly familiar. The Emperor kept his tyrannical position on the throne strong. But it was the last card that brought great fear into Damianos’ heart for when the Witch flipped it over he gasped, a quiet and pained sound. The Tower, climbing high into the sky.

“It is as I feared,” Laurent breathed.

“The Tower? Why the Tower?” Damianos asked, impatiently.

With a sweep of magic that made the hairs on Damianos’ arms stand up, Laurent vanished the cards away and turned to face the wine dark waters of the sea.

“What do you know about your brother?” the Witch asked instead of answering Damianos’ question.

It definitely had not been what Damianos had been expecting to be asked.

As far as he knew, the Witch — Laurent — had no reason to truly know anything about Damianos’ brother, Kastor. He may have known Kastor existed, but Kastor hadn’t been brought up once in the days Damianos was at the cabin.

“He’s my brother,” he said simply instead of trying to fake anything else. “What is it you wish to know about him?”

“Has your brother paid visit to Jokaste in her cell since your return?”

“What? No. Of course not. Why would he?” Damianos asked, taken aback. Every question of the Witch’s brought forth more questions on Damianos’ end.

“Ask your guards,” Laurent told him, turning away from the sea. “Ask them how many times he has traveled down the staircase to the cells in the week since Jokaste was sent to be held there.”

“Why?” Damianos asked. He felt like a child constantly repeating the question of ‘Why?’.

“Do you not find it odd that your father’s health is worsening each day?”

Like at the cabin, Damianos was angry and frustrated at Laurent’s speaking in riddles. He voiced those feelings yet again. “Speak plainly, Laurent. I cannot make sense of anything when you answer each of my questions with a question of your own or in an indirect, unspecified way.”

“You wish for me to speak plainly? Fine,” Laurent said, sounding as depleted as Damianos felt and standing up off of the stone balcony to dust off his pants. “Jokaste was pregnant with your brother’s child and the two of them are planning on murdering both you and your father. They have almost succeeded in the latter.”

A physical strike to Damianos’ body would have hurt far less, would have been less jarring in every way.

“Leave.”

Laurent didn’t move.

“Go back to your forest, to your seclusion, to where people can seek you out if they want your opinion. Leave me and my kingdom be, we have more than plenty to deal with right now. No one in Akielos needs your guesses.”

“Are you truly ready to be king so soon? Your father only has weeks to live, Damianos,” Laurent responded.

“Leave,” Damianos repeated, voice hard.

Laurent looked like he wanted to say so much more. His expression almost looked like pity and it angered Damianos even more. They stood, at a stalemate, for moments, but Laurent finally turned toward the room and walked. Just at the threshold of where the moonlight turned into darkness, Laurent turned back and said, “Talk to the guards,” before he vanished, the act of it sending a rush of electricity through Damianos’ being.

Damianos spent the entire rest of the evening tossing and turning in his bed. He didn’t want to dwell on all Laurent had said, but it was impossible not to. Jokaste and Kastor? Murdering his — their — father? No. Jokaste would have been a bit more understandable as an outsider, but even then it seemed impossible; why would she risk execution? But Kastor...no, that couldn’t be true. Kastor wouldn’t betray him, them, in such a way; Kastor wouldn’t kill their father.

And yet…

When the sun was finally over the horizon, Damianos got out of bed. Tiredness had escaped him for he had so much to think on, but he had only gotten three or four hours of sleep.

At this early of an hour, the only people awake in the palace were slaves, guards, and cooks, all preparing for the day in different ways. It was unusual for a prince to be awake at such a time and so many fell to their knees in surprise as Damianos walked by. He paid them no mind. Instead he walked until he was at the staircase that winded down to the cells. The guards there moved with respect, but Damianos stayed put, not yet descending.

“Has my brother been down to these cells to visit the prisoner Jokaste?” Damianos asked, addressing both guards.

“On the first day of her being brought here Prince Kastor did go to the cells, but he was only there for a handful of minutes at most,” the guard on the left said, eyes never looking directly at Damianos.

“And the rest of the week?”

“No, Crown Prince, he did not come back to the cells during the rest of the week.”

The words brought such relief with them that Damianos almost fell over in his sudden exhaustion. The Witch had been wrong. Kastor and Jokaste knew each other as they always had, in passing through interactions related to Damianos and Jokaste’s arranged marriage, and Kastor would never hurt their father, wouldn’t --

The guards were not inconspicuous as they shared worried glances back and forth.

“What is it?” Damianos asked them.

The guard that hadn’t spoken yet swallowed, the act of it audible in his nervousness.

“Well?”

“Prince Kastor came down the first day for only a handful of minutes and was not here the rest of the week,” the second guard said, repeating knowledge already known. “Until yesterday, that is. Yesterday he came down as soon as you had left, Crown Prince, and he was down there for almost an hour. Then he came back. He came back five more times, the last time being just this morning after midnight.”

Impulsivity drove him immediately to Kastor’s chambers.

He should have waited, waited to collect his thoughts, but Kastor’s chambers were nearby and Damianos’ head had been spinning for hours.

He didn’t bother to knock because he was Damianos and Kastor was his brother, and inside Kastor was being dressed by slaves. One was tying and pinning his crisp chiton around both his waist and his shoulders and the other was knelt on the ground, buckling his sandals with precision.

“When you are finished, leave us,” Damianos demanded of the slaves promptly. Their movements hurried and they both prostrated themselves on the ground in front of him before scurrying away.

“Commanding my slaves, brother?” Kastor asked, looking questioningly at him.

“Why have you been paying Jokaste visits in the cells?”

If Kastor was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. Instead he adjusted his chiton where it draped across his chest and said with utmost sincerity in his voice, “I’m trying to understand why she would betray you in such a way. Any good brother would wish to make sense of why their own blood must suffer as she has made you suffer.”

It would have been easy, in that moment, to take Kastor’s words as truth, to walk forward and slap him on the shoulder for an embrace, to go back to his own chambers and get actual rest. But Laurent’s words were ever present in his mind and, like before, he heard in clarity, _“I hadn’t been lying when I said that I believed there was more to this than what you were seeing. Things are not alright in your kingdom, Damianos. Bringing Jokaste back may have only brought the war on faster.”_

“The guards say you went down once the very first day she was brought there, and that you went down six times not but yesterday. That seems like an excessive amount of times to visit a person for that reason alone.”

Kastor laughed. His laugh was booming like their father’s. “I’m afraid you’ve become paranoid, brother. It’s understandable, of course, given the current situation, but you need not be afraid of me. We are blood, Damianos. Now, I’m off to get breakfast. Would you care to join me?”

“I cannot,” Damianos told him, his stomach still turned despite Kastor’s attempt at comfort. “I did not sleep well last night and —”

“Then go rest. I will see you at dinner.”

There was no time to rest, not when things were getting stranger and stranger and there was something Damianos wasn’t seeing. Kastor was no help, none at all, and that left Damianos with one person. Like she had been for the last seven days, Jokaste was in her cell, smiling warmly once more at Damianos’ entrance

“Again? Do you miss me that much?”

“I know everything,” Damianos said, not sure of anything at all.

“Oh?”

“I know you rid yourself of child. I know that’s why you were gone. We didn’t talk about it, we never have talked much about anything, but I know this to be true.”

“It was not his information to tell you,” Jokaste said, her features changing for the first time in all the days Damianos had seen her.

“The Witch is not obligated to keep your secrets, especially from me.”

“The Witch?” Jokasted asked, blonde hair tumbling forward as she leaned toward him from the bench.

“The Witch told me everything I needed to know when I first found him, but so much is still unclear. You must tell me why my brother has been to see you. I don’t believe the words out of his mouth,” Damianos said.

“Who said your brother has been to visit me? The Witch?” Jokaste asked, almost mocking. Damianos’ jaw clenched.

“Yes.”

“Witches can lie, Damianos,” Jokaste said. “How do you know he is not?”

“Because he has been right in every way thus far.”

“Well, if he is telling you truth then my word means nothing. Your decision is already made, after all.”

“So you won’t speak?”

“I won’t.”

Damianos nodded. “Then I will make sure your exile is further away from all civilization than you could ever imagine.”

***

The next two mornings went by uneventfully. Kastor was anywhere but the places Damianos found himself, Jokaste was remaining silent in her cell, Theomedes was bedridden and beginning to cough up blood (the physicians feared consumption but said nothing to the poor stressed princes, not yet), and Damianos was restless. He spent the previous two evenings staring blankly at the high ceiling or out at the balcony, wishing he could summon Laurent back. He had been rash in sending the Witch away, allowing his emotions to consume him in that moment and not thinking rationally. Now he was left with more questions than ever before and no one to answer them.

By the third evening, sleep deprivation won in the battle and, though it was not a peaceful sleep Damianos fell into, he slept. He was terribly groggy when he awoke to the feeling of a presence in his room and as he did all he could to pry open his eyes. He expected Laurent at the balcony once more, silver and blue in the moonlight. But there was no one at the balcony. The presence was at his bedchamber door.

There stood Kastor, his features strong in the torchlight that the group of guards around him were carrying. Damianos pushed himself up onto one elbow, rubbed at his eyes too hard, and asked, “Kastor? What’s going on?”

“Seize him,” Kastor commanded of the guards and they all rushed forward.

Adrenaline spiked in Damianos’ blood immediately at the action and he sprang up as to not get overwhelmed in such vulnerability. The first guard to reach him lunged too early and Damianos dodged the grab before lashing out with a fist in the guard’s left side, no doubt breaking a rib or three. The fall of the guard’s body gave Damianos enough time to reach his sword and unsheath it. The second guard never even saw the blade before it plunged into the open expanse of the inside of his thigh, cutting through an artery that would bleed out in mere minutes. The third guard came from behind and Damianos was skilled enough to twist his sword in his grip and stab it backwards underneath his own arm and into the guard’s chest. But then the fourth and fifth guard were on him at the same time, followed without delay by the seventh, eighth, and ninth guards that eventually all took Damianos down onto his knees and lashed his arms tightly behind his back.

Above him, Kastor stood, intimidating at such an angle.

“Kastor,” Damianos struggled out, a guard’s arm wound around his neck, “what is the meaning of this Kastor?”

“You have committed treason, Damianos,” Kastor began, sounding almost sad. “You have committed treason through your conspiring with the evil Witch of Vere to kill our father and take his crown.”

“What?” Damianos asked. “You know that’s not true.”

“It pains me to do this to you. You are my brother. Yet,” Kastor paused to sigh, “we may lose our father because of your selfishness and greed. Such an act cannot be overlooked. The Akielon people will not be able to stomach it.”

“Kastor, you’re lying,” Damianos yelled.

“Take him to the cells,” Kastor said, ignoring Damianos on his knees. The guards began to drag the Crown Prince away, his skin scraping unkindly on the floor.

“Kastor! Kastor!”

Hours went by in darkness. The fragments of light within the cells seemed even less today, tonight. Damianos had forgone the bench, opting to sit on the dirty floor right by the cell’s entrance. His head rested between his bent knees and his hands were bloodied from his fights. His mind was blank for the first time in days. That’s when he heard footsteps.

There was first the unmistakable click of loose sandals, the kind women wore when they did not have to be working. Damianos looked up to find Jokaste staring at him in a strange turn of events. She had recently bathed for her shampoos and oils that smelled like jasmine blossoms wafted through the cell bars.

“I must thank you for my freedom,” Jokaste said.

“I didn’t free you,” Damianos said back. His voice was hoarse.

“You did though,” she said, beginning to walk the length of the cell door and back. “Without your own indiscretion against your kingdom, I may have never stepped foot outside of these cells again.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You conspired with a witch,” Jokaste said. “You discovered I was pregnant and forced me there with threats. When I didn’t return out of fear for my life, you went to the Witch and bought his assistance with promise of a position of power here in Akielos. You returned with me in tow, guaranteed exile where I couldn’t speak of your heinous acts and your father slowly began to die.”

“None of that is true. And none of it would make sense even if it were true. Why would I force you to the Witch?” Damianos asked, baffled.

“Why, because it was Kastor’s child. He took me in when you began your descent toward all things evil and depraved.”

“My father demanded you out of my bed lest we did end up with you pregnant before the wedding and caused a scandal.”

“Your father will be dead soon. No one will know the truth.”

“You have no proof about any of it,” Damianos said, pushing himself to stand. Jokaste didn’t budge from her close proximity to the cell.

“I don’t need proof.”

***

The trial against Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos was rushed.

The very night of his detention, riders were sent out to all the provinces of Akielos, sending for each Kyros to venture to the kingdom’s capital of Ios to be judges. Quickly the Kyroi began to file into the palace, all at a loss as what to think, all except for Nikandros, the Kyros of Delpha and Damianos’ best childhood friend. Nikandros was vocal from the moment he entered the gate of the city as to what he thought of such a farce, but all the others looked at the palace with its almost-dead King, its Crown Prince in chains, and its other Prince somber and broad shouldered, comforting the visibly upset woman that had once been the crown prince’s betrothed and wondered if this was just as it appeared to be.

Formally, the first day of the trial was spent with each Kyros taking an oath to uphold their kingdom’s wellbeing before all other things, followed by an introduction of those testifying and then the reading of the charges against Crown Prince Damianos.

Damianos felt like a gladiator being told to fight to the death, only he was given no weapons and his hands were tied behind his back; the Kyroi were all seated in the spectator seats of the throne room, their seats elevated so their wide-eyed stares were turned downward to face where Damianos was dragged center on the floor, his shackles clanging behind him with each step. Like a blur the days went by. Jokaste testified first on the second day of the trial, weaving together a weeping tale of Damianos telling her he had grown bored with her, a tale of Damianos threatening her should she run to her father about that. She then told of Kastor listening to her when she felt alone, building safeness for her in a palace so unwelcoming. She talked of falling pregnant with his child, knowing it was wrong due to her betrothal, but how it felt right, and of Damianos finding out and forcing her to the infamous Witch of Vere who could rip from her the would-be grandchild of the King. Kastor testified the next day, Damianos sitting there through it all in shock, as Kastor talked of Jokaste’s fear and of their excitement to be parents. Kastor talked of the terror he had experienced as Jokaste vanished and how that terror worsened as Damianos went after her, but not before their father came down with a sickness. Kastor remained steady, but the emotion was there as he talked of losing his child and of almost losing his love and his father.

It was hard to figure out which was worse, the idea that Damianos’ own brother could lie about him so easily or the fact that the Kyroi seemed to be buying it all. Their belief in these lies only intensified as, on the fourth day, witnesses were brought forth to continue to destroy Damianos’ name and reputation.

“Never have I witnessed such a cruelty,” Adrastus, the Keeper of Slaves, spoke, “as the cruelty that lies within the heart of Prince Damianos.”

“The things Prince Damianos has said about his own brother and his betrothed haunt my sleep each night,” Mykara, one of the royal cooks, said with a hand over her heaving bosom.

“His behavior has had Exalted concerned over the last several months,” Timon, one of his father’s advisors, began. “In fact, Exalted has been so concerned he had been working out a date to meet with the Kyroi about removing Prince Damianos as the next in line purely for the kingdom’s wellbeing.”

“This slave has been at a loss,” said one of the slave attendants that often served at dinners, tears shining in his eyes. “Prince Damianos handed this slave the vial of deadly poison and said to put it in Exalted’s wine over the next few evenings or he would have this slave beaten beyond recognition.”

In that moment, Damianos realized he was hanging by his fingernails to the ledge of the daunting tower.

On the seventh day of the trial, Damianos was to be sentenced. He wasn’t quite certain why they had dragged it out as long as they had, for by day three over half of the Kyroi believed what they were hearing, and by day five all of the rest, all but Nikandros, believed too. Perhaps it was for the humiliation of it all, perhaps it was to make it seem more legitimate when they inevitably had him, the crown prince, executed for treason.

Damianos had no defense. All he could say was the truth which he had no proof of, and even if he had it was his word against the synchronised fabrications of a dozen others.

“Today is a sad day in Akielos,” began the Kyros from Thrace, Ignion. “Never had anyone suspected such evil could live behind these palace walls. To do to your family what Prince Damianos has been accused of is unthinkable. Do you have any words for yourself?” he then asked, turning to where Damianos was still chained in the center of the room.

“None that would change the opinions of this senate,” Damianos said, voice unused for days.

Ignion looked at him sadly. “Then it is time to take a vote. We, the Kyroi of Akielos, stand in this room to —”

“Stop!”

The voice was not a pleading voice, but a commanding one instead. Almost as though they had seen a ghost, everyone in the room stopped, stood completely still as they watched their king, Theomedes, walk into the throne room.

It seemed like an eternity, though it was truly only a minute, before the whispers started and all fell to their knees, all except for Damianos, Kastor, and Jokaste, who each looked as though such a revelation could have them keel over in an instant.

“Father,” Damianos breathed, the sound so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the beat of his own heart, over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.

Tall, King Theomedes walked toward the front of the room where his still-empty throne sat. He walked head high and eyes straight ahead as though the piercing stares of all in the room didn’t bother him. Watching him, it was hard to think that this was the man that had fallen into coughing fits but three weeks ago, who had gotten worse each passing day, paler and thinner and frailer, all until the blood began to seep into his handkerchiefs, for now he was full of color and life. Yes, he was still a little thinner than he had been in the months past, but that could be amended. He looked like the King he had always been.

Once at his throne, Theomedes turned to address his people. “I am here to speak on my own behalf, for none know the truth. I am here to say that you have shackled to these great floors the wrong son. Damianos is innocent in all that he is accused. It has been Kastor who has tainted the land. It is him who began to poison me.”

All those on their knees began to rise, gasps and wide-eyes taking over their expressions. Across the room, Kastor had long visibly whitened and he stared unblinkingly at their father in fear.

“I will provide proof, something that has been greatly lacking in this mockery of a trial, but I must iterate to you all first, my people, that Kastor did not act alone. The idea was planted into his head by true evil and he believed it because of his own greed. Kastor and the Lady Jokaste are responsible for my near death and the planned death of my son, Damianos.” Theomedes turned his body from facing toward the very ‘all’ he had been speaking directly to so as to now face Kastor, Jokaste, and their flock of witnesses that hadn’t witnessed anything at all. “Kastor, my oldest son, I cannot begin to atone for the deeds you have committed. Such a thing is unthinkable and yet it has happened. Lady Jokaste, why you could not be content with the guaranteed position as future queen is truly a mystery. I regret in all ways the day I signed the betrothal agreement with your father. And the rest of you, I know you did what you did because of threats or promises, and I shall deal accordingly with each of you dependent on such things soon. But other matters are more imperative now.”

“Father, you don’t understand,” Kastor said, trying to move forward but Jokaste’s hand was holding him back by the arm.

“I don’t have anything to hear from you,” Theomedes said coldly. “Now unshackle the Crown Prince of Akielos.”

“Exalted” began the Kyros of Ios, an old man named Stavos, “my heart leaps at your recovery and it aches at your words. I very much want to hear it all, for your wisdom and leadership were beyond missed in this troubled time, but I believe we all have to know, before anything else, how you have recovered in such a manner if Kastor has been poisoning you.”

“The Witch of Vere has healed me.”

If the gasps of surprise had seemed loud when Theomedes had walked in, it was nothing compared to the gasps heard now.

“The Witch of Vere!”

“Exalted!”

“The Witch is real?”

“The Witch is here?”

This time it was Jokaste that visibly whitened.

Damianos, for his part, found himself almost weak at the words, weak as what they truly meant washed over him.

“How did this happen?” asked a Kyros from somewhere in the massed throng of people now on their feet.

“The Witch came to me in disguise,” began Theomedes. “He disguised himself as a slave and began tending to me. It was only when left alone, when he had been tasked with feeding me the broth, that he whispered his truth. At first I was disbelieving for I had no reason to assume different, but when he revealed to me his true form and his power I could not deny. I expected death then, but it never came, and as I went to yell for help, the Witch stopped me and said he only wished to help. He said my kingdom was in great danger and it would only be my survival and my word that could save it. As the days went by, he began to heal me and tell me of the horrible things that had happened.”

“The Witch of Vere has cursed the king!” cried out one of the other Kyros, voice enraged.

“The Witch will control the entirety of Akielos!” cried out yet another.

Uproar.

None of them had truly listened to what the King had to say. They took it as a confession of the Witch’s meddling only. Damianos watched, helpless, as fear overtook the throne room. Like animals sent for slaughter, the Kyroi began to venture forward in a wretched herd of panic, eyes scouring every inch of the palace walls and floors as though waiting for a hellish witch to appear from the cracks in the stone. Then Damianos’ own panic settled when he felt hands on his shackled wrists.

“Hold on,” said Nikandros directly into his ear so he could hear him and Damianos could have cried with relief. He didn’t, of course, and instead kept his eyes on the chaos ensuing. It took a moment and there was a scraping of metal on metal, but Damianos quickly realized Nikandros was using the dagger Damianos had gifted him with in congratulations for being honored the title of Kyros of Delpha to unpick the locks.

Just as Nikandros was helping Damianos step out of the shackles around his feet did Theomedes’ yell reverberate off of the walls, bringing the crowd to yet again another halt.

“Enough! Do you dare call me liar? Do you dare defy my order? I am your King. Has that changed in the weeks since I had fallen ill?” Fire filled Theomedes’ eyes and his voice. Damianos rubbed at his raw wrists.

“You were so quick,” Theomedes started once more, “to believe a story brought to life through endless lies, a story made extraordinary with tears and tales of heroics. But I told you, I have proof.”

“Then bring it forward.”

With a steady hand, Theomedes motioned for someone in the crowd. It was a slave boy, his brown eyes big and dark hair cropped short, but he walked unlike any slave and did not look down out of Theomedes’ stare. Once the boy was at the king’s side, the room fell into a dead kind of silence, the kind so quiet the sound of a pin dropping could be heard like a shout. Then, like magic, the boy transformed.

It was a fast transformation, so fluid in its movement that the intricacies of it could not be kept straight with the human eye. But all anyone in the crowd knew was that at one moment the boy had been a young Akielon slave and now he was tall, blond, and staring at them all with unreadable blue eyes.

“Laurent.”

Damianos had earlier whispered “Father” and it had gone unnoticed for there was so much happening in the room. But now he had whispered a single name and it was heard by all.

The Witch of Vere was standing next to the King of Akielos in the throne room of the palace in Ios and wearing still a traditional slave chiton, one stark white that fell mid-thigh in youthful fashion. Damianos could look nowhere else.

“The Witch has all the proof you will need to see what has happened, to see the injustice that was almost sentenced.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jokaste said, her first words since Theomedes’ unexpected entrance.

“You will be silent or you will spend an eternity in the cells, left to rot into nothing. No death, just permanent incarceration,” Theomedes told her. He didn’t even spare her a glance. “Witch, tell us everything you know.”

***

Hours later, Damianos fell face first into his cushioned bed, wearing still the chiton he had been captured in. The exhaustion he felt was not just physical from the standing he had done during the weeklong trial nor even the result of sleeping restlessly on the cold, damp floor of the cell. No, the exhaustion he felt was bone deep, the conclusion of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.

Damianos slept for nearly an entire day. In his long sleep he dreamed, flashes of what had occurred but yesterday. He dreamed of his father walking into the throne room, strong and steady as Damianos had always known him. He dreamed of his father’s commanding voice ordering him unshackled. He dreamed of Nikandros’ never-wavering loyalty in him, in Nikandros’ quick work of the locks on his wrists and ankles. He dreamed of Laurent adorned in white, of his skin dropped against a background of white pillars, of his blue eyes that looked once, twice, three times at Damianos with what he would almost call concern or relief or both.

He dreamed of Laurent’s surety as he provided his proof to the Kyroi. He dreamed of the deathly silence that fell over after Jokaste’s father tried to interject, screaming that the Witch hadn’t taken any child, and Laurent said calmly he could show the man the bloody clump of cells if he wished. He dreamed of Laurent’s explanation of Jokaste’s visit that inevitably led to Damianos’ own, of the way in which he realized the doom Akielos would face in the days to come. He dreamed of Laurent bringing forth letters written in both Kastor and Jokaste’s hands, letters that, once put together, told of their plan to rule together. He dreamed of Laurent’s telling of how he had to heal the King slowly for the amount of potion needed to heal him would have put him in a week long sleep of recovery if given at one time. He dreamed mostly of Laurent, the Witch of Vere, standing in the land of Akielos where he was hated and defending it still.

It wasn’t a surprise when he then first woke up to see Laurent sitting on his bed for he thought he was still dreaming. When he realized he wasn’t though, he scrambled up, breathing once again, “Laurent,” and halting altogether at Laurent’s gentle touch to his shoulder.

“Stay still,” Laurent said, voice barely above a whisper.

“Laurent,” Damianos breathed again. “You’re still here.”

“I am.”

Damianos couldn’t take his eyes off of the Witch, even as he went to settle back into the pillows and blankets. “I have so many questions.”

“Then ask. I’m afraid, however, your cards cannot assist this time,” Laurent said. Damianos smiled, a small and sleepy upturn of his mouth.

“Why did you help me?” he began. “You did all I asked in first helping me locate Jokaste. You didn’t have to come to Akielos and stop this, yet you did.”

The Witch trailed a finger down one of the prominent lines of stitching in the blanket as he contemplated his answer. “You remember my cat, yes?” he asked. Damianos nodded. “For witches, animals are not merely animals. They are part of our magic in a way, in tune with the elements. Often they are called familiars. When you were in the cabin, my familiar took quite kindly to you. He slept on your chest, he allowed you to provide him with food, he sought out your pets. When your once-betrothed was paying her visit, my familiar was horribly on edge. He hissed when she walked too close and his hair was always up in defense. It might sound silly, but I trust that judgement greatly. It made me nervous once I realized who she was to you, once I realized the connection between the two of you. I couldn’t not let that go unchecked. You were — you are — good.”

“Why did you stay after I told you to go?”

“Because your father was dying and only he could clear your name. I had to help you, even if you wouldn’t help yourself.”

“But what did this do to benefit you at all? Akielos must be far from your mind.”

“The four kingdoms are currently surviving in harmony. Yes, Vaskian mountain raiders cause problems here and there, and yes, Vere and Akielos continue their feud over the land of Delfeur —”

“Delpha.”

“But there is no war. No war is good for all, even witches living in the Northern Steppes,” Laurent told him. “Believe me when I say this wasn’t purely out of any goodness, but out of necessity.”

“I believe some of it must have been out of goodness though,” Damianos said. “What you did was good, Laurent. You saved not just me and my father, but our entire kingdom.”

If the Witch heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. His blue eyes were focused elsewhere, looking anywhere but at Damianos, and the two of them eventually fell into silence. It was a comfortable silence. The air outside was warm and the breeze was strong, bringing with it the salt of the ocean and a cooling air. Quietly, as not to disrupt the peace more than necessary, Damianos began to speak again.

“I still don’t know why Jokaste went to the lengths she did,” he confessed. “It wasn’t love between us, no, but we got along I believed. We could have made being wed such an easy thing, especially when compared to other arranged marriages I have known of in the past.”

“Jokaste is a kingmaker,” Laurent said as though that explained everything.

“I am to be King,” Damianos said, confused. “I don’t —”

“In her time away from you, following your father’s orders, it began to become evident to her that she may be Queen married to you, but she would never rule. You were proving with each passing day that you would not be controlled and she couldn’t stand by that. Your brother, on the other hand, was easy. All she had to do was whisper praises into his ear, telling him he was better than you, then she would tempt him into her bed, in action which he followed with eagerness. She could marry you, kill you, and be established as Queen and face no opposition when she proposed your brother as her new husband for, though he is a bastard, he would be the last surviving son of the King.”

“Oh. How do you know that?”

“Kastor told all. It was after you left. He was begging for his life.” Laurent paused to let Damianos take that in. “She did make a mistake in falling pregnant with his child though. It was the thing that ruined them both.”

The breeze picked up in strength. Not by much, but enough that it began to play with the golden ends of Laurent’s hair. It moved some of the strands out of his face and bared to Damianos the clearness of the Witch’s eyes, bared to him his flushed cheeks from Akielon heat.

“Akielos has some recovering to do, but we can come out of this stronger than before. I can’t thank you enough,” Damianos said, catching his breath. “You have done more for me than I could ever repay. What can I give you? I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

“You do enjoy playing dangerous games,” Laurent told him, looking amused like he often did when Damianos made offerings. “Offering witches your freedom and offering to grant them anything they desire could truly be your downfall.”

“Not with you.”

“You didn’t know that when you offered to me your freedom.”

“No, but I know that now. What can I give you?”

Introspection overtook Laurent’s expression and his mouth opened once and quickly closed again, as though he had thought of something then thought better of it. “Give me one more opportunity to read to you a card,” he said finally. Magically, the cards were sweeping and present and Damianos almost rolled his eyes.

“But —”

“Find your one. Just one. Think of anything you wish and find your card,” the Witch told him. Damianos sighed.

The card came to him quickly. Before it was flipped over, he couldn’t resist saying, “I don’t seem to have great luck with these. What if the card says I am to die tomorrow?”

“Then you die tomorrow,” Laurent said, taking the card from him. “But I doubt that’s the case.”

Gently, Laurent turned the card over in the same direction Damianos had handed it to him. There, in gold and blue, was a pair of people, their hands clasped together, a heart floating above them like a beacon. The Lovers.

“You truly are a romantic.” Laurent started. “It appears, Damianos, your betrothal was not necessary at all. Love is near, a love of balance and unity. Hopefully this time it is with someone who does not try to kill you.”

Damianos couldn’t quit staring at the card. When he finally did manage to tear his gaze away, it immediately found Laurent who was looking back at him with something akin to curiosity.

“Would you like to keep the card?” Laurent asked him after a moment.

“But then your set will be incomplete.”

“Believe me when I say I have plenty of cards at my cabin. Often they are lost or appear in the strangest of places. The Lovers exist elsewhere. Keep it.”

Like Laurent, Damianos grabbed the card with a gentle touch. Then he watched with a feeling like despair as Laurent stood up from his bed. “Finding a card for myself surely can’t be equal repayment for all you’ve done,” Damianos said, moving closer to the side of the bed the Witch had just stood from. “What else can I give you?”

“Let’s not change the tone; one kiss and we’ll call it even,” Laurent said, laughing almost as though he thought he was quite funny, pointedly casting a glance at the card still in Damianos’ hand.

It hadn’t been said seriously because it couldn’t be, which is why Laurent was turned away when Damianos’ hand not holding the card enclosed tenderly around his fine-boned wrist and tugged the Witch back towards him. Immediately Laurent’s knees hit the edge of the bed and his hands found Damianos’ shoulders for balance. Though the breeze was still sifting through from the balcony and the air was cool, the atmosphere around them changed, got heavy with heat.

Laurent’s lips were parted ever so, out of surprise or anticipation or with the death of something to say, and Damianos couldn’t not flick his gaze toward them, couldn’t not lean in until his own lips were but a breath away. “Tell me no,” he whispered, the words warm against Laurent’s mouth, and the longest of seconds passed with nothing said, with not a breath taken. Damianos closed the distance.

Laurent’s lips were warm and his fingers, still resting on Damianos’ shoulders, clenched almost painfully on the skin there as though afraid he would fall. Damianos made no sudden movement, relished in the weight of Laurent now half atop his thighs, relished in the heat of him surrounding all of Damianos’ senses. After a minute, the fingers on his shoulders lessened their grip and, in turn, the rigidness of Laurent’s spine eased away until he was putting all of his weight on Damianos, until one of his hands moved into the curls at the nape of Damianos’ neck.

Only then did Damianos move, his own hands instinctively finding Laurent’s hips, steadying him there until the Witch was straddling his lap, his bare legs on either side of Damianos’ own. Softly Damianos went to deepen the kiss, bringing forth an involuntary gasp from Laurent who tensed ever briefly before melting into it, his mouth opening, his hips shifting.

At the cabin, all those weeks ago now, Laurent had, quite literally, taken the air out of Damianos’ lungs. Now he was doing so again, only this time Damianos would willingly lose it all if it meant Laurent would stay right here forever.

Damianos moved in a miniscule way, just enough away to worry Laurent’s bottom lip between his teeth before soothing it with the gentlest of touch. Laurent shuddered against him, full body movements that ended with them pressed so tightly together it was impossible to tell who began where. A sound escaped Laurent then, so quietly, and Damianos wanted to hear it over and over and over again.

But things end. They always do.

Laurent pulled away, chest heaving against Damianos’. He could feel their individual heartbeats through their skin. Damianos almost didn’t open his eyes, afraid of breaking the magic of the room, but he was grateful when he did for he got to see Laurent’s heavily lidded eyes, he got to see the redness of his mouth, he got to see the haze of his expression as though unable to pull himself out of a spell.

“Goodbye, Prince Damianos,” Laurent said, still breathless. His voice was lower than Damianos had ever heard it before.

“Goodbye, Laurent.”

In an instant, Damianos almost staggered forward off the bed for Laurent disappeared. Somehow, in the fervor of it all, the Lovers had fallen onto the floor in the same direction they had found Damianos.

***

The executions of both Kastor and Jokaste were done quickly in the days following the trial. Their official sentencing had found them guilty of attempted murder of King Theomedes and conspiracy to murder Crown Prince Damianos.

Though it had been hell, the false accusations Damianos had faced from his brother and betrothed, there was still mourning that he had to wade through. All of Akielos was quiet with it, actually, a feeling of disbelief long given way to an unnamable kind of grief.

Weeks went by like this, Damianos wary of almost all that came near him or his father, and his vivid dreams had him sometimes thinking of Kastor’s hand shooting out of the ground to pull him down.

Eventually his father couldn’t keep silent on it all. “I think you need to get out of Ios,” Theomedes told him one day after breakfast. “Go clear your head someplace else.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone again,” Damianos had said back.

Theomedes had smiled indulgently and placed a hand on top of Damianos’ head like his son was a young child once more. “I think we are safe once again in our palace walls. Visit Nikandros in Delpha for a week, for two weeks. Train with the men, strategize, drink. It will do you good.”

After a little more convincing, Damianos finally gave in to his father’s request and prepared for travel to the land of Delpha. He wrote ahead a letter as to not surprise Nikandros too suddenly before he ventured off with a single guard. They rode at a leisurely pace, taking in as much of the fresh air as Damianos wished, and after several days they finally found themselves but another day’s ride away from Delpha’s gate.

It was only when they were strolling through said gate that Damianos realized that this was not at all where he wanted to be. He told Nikandros such a thing that night over a cup of General Makedon’s griva.

“It is not that I am not thrilled to see you, friend,” he said, making a slight face as he swallowed yet another mouthful of the drink. “But I believe I need to get out of Akielos entirely. For only a while.”

Nikandros looked concerned. “Where will you go? Patras would maybe be agreeable, but neither Vask or Vere would be safe for you as the man you are.”

The answer was so simple that Damianos almost laughed at himself, wondering how he was unaware where his body wanted to take him the entire time. He looked at Nikandros, still almost laughing. “You wouldn’t happen to own a cloak and boots meant for snow, would you?”

He left in the dead of night to avoid his guard escort who was still long asleep. Damianos made sure to leave a letter for when his father inevitably panicked and sent people after him in Delpha. No one needed to get in trouble for Damianos’ exigency to get away.

It was easy to take almost the exact same path he had taken the first time. He stowed away in multiple merchants’ carts, sometimes with permission and a gift of gold, and sometimes sneakily whilst the merchants slept in inns. He made it to the Northern Steppes a little faster this time because of it, and when his boots first touched snow he felt invigorated; two more days of travel.

Those two days went by quickly and uneventfully. Then the cabin was in front of him.

There was a fire roaring inside, its flames visible through the window. Nothing had changed in the weeks, months now, since Damianos had first paid visit. He didn’t know why anything would have changed, but there was something comforting at the unchanged appearance. The stones marking the spot for a gateway almost seemed to glitter with Damianos’ arrival.

Damianos walked forward, knocked on the cabin door four times, retreated back to stand between the two stone markers and said, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I offer to him my undying loyalty.”

The door opened wide.

In the threshold stood Laurent, arms crossed over his chest. He was back to wearing his laced up clothing that covered him neck to foot and Damianos hadn’t ever seen someone look so beautiful and annoyed all at once. A smile fought its way onto his face as he began to walk the pathway again, toward the Witch giving him a stormy look.

“You can’t just show up here each time you have a question you need me to answer,” Laurent said.

“I have no questions that need answered,” Damianos said. He was now inches in front of Laurent, the two of them nearly toe to toe.

“Then why are you here? Need a love potion to pair with your card?” Laurent asked looking up at him.

“I only wish to talk to you,” Damianos said.

“And you just casually offered undying loyalty?” It was impossible to miss Laurent’s delicately raised brow.

“I suppose that wasn’t a good enough offering,” Damianos said after pretending to think about it for a moment. “After all, I can’t offer you something you already had.”

Laurent looked at him. “Are you going to come inside?”

“If you’ll allow me.”

It was blazing hot inside the cabin, just as it had been when Damianos had entered here the first time. The cat, the very same white darling, immediately found Damianos’ feet and curled around his legs, purring and warm where it pressed. Laurent looked down at it helpless.

“What do you want, Damianos?” Laurent asked of him again.

“I told you. I wish to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About you.” Damianos invited himself to sit down at the familiar table and the cat followed, jumping up on the table’s flat surface. “I realized in the days since you left that you left knowing so much about us, about my family and myself, and yet I left knowing only the same things I arrived here knowing.”

“And what were those things?”

“That you are powerful and heartstoppingly beautiful,” Damianos said truthfully. Laurent flushed under his steady gaze. “But I want to know about you.”

“You didn’t have to come all the way here,” Laurent said after a beat.

“Oh, was I supposed to send a letter? With what carrier?” Laurent’s flush turned into a glare. Damianos smiled again. “Tell me about you. Tell me anything, tell me everything.”

Laurent’s gaze turned to the ceiling as though it would give him answers. “Why?”

“Because everything you have done has been more than I thought possible in this world. Is it so strange that I would wish to know better the man that did all you have done?”

“It will probably take time,” Laurent said.

“That’s fine,” Damianos said, getting comfortable in the chair. “That is my true offer to you then: time. Take all my time if you like.”

“You’re so —” Laurent began, looking at Damianos as though he had never seen anyone quite like him before. “Fine.”

Laurent’s life hadn’t been what Damianos expected. He hadn’t expected a story of a witch from the northernmost part of Kempt journeying south to the Veretian province of Belloy to retrieve ingredients for a healing spell and whilst there falling for a noble named Aleron who proposed to her, knowing her truth and all within a week. He hadn’t expected a story of the two of them, Aleron and the witch Hennike, to have had two children, the oldest child having no magic in him at all and the youngest being full of it. He hadn’t expected Aleron’s brother to have been a predator that waited impatiently to be left alone with Laurent, who was but the mere age of eleven, and he hadn’t expected Laurent to tell how his magic had protected him, lashing out to hurt his uncle quite severely. He hadn’t expected the tragedy that began to befall then, of Laurent’s brother, Auguste, asking about their uncle’s injury, of Laurent clumsily explaining what their uncle had tried to do. He hadn’t expected Auguste to go after their uncle with intent to kill, hadn’t expected their uncle to come out alive instead, Auguste murdered by his hand. He hadn’t expected Laurent’s powers to flounder out of control with his grief, killing their uncle in turn, and he hadn’t expected the townspeople to go after Hennike and Laurent with such rage that Aleron and Hennike both died trying to protect their son who was run out, forced to survive orphaned in the Northern Steppes, relying on magic to keep him alive those first months.

“Don’t look at me with pity,” Laurent told him after he finished. “I don’t need it.”

“I’m not,” Damianos lied. “But, Laurent —”

“Yes, it was all quite traumatizing. But it is long in the past now.”

“It can’t be that long in the past,” Damianos said. “You have to only be but twenty-one years of age.”

Laurent smiled. “I’m turning twenty come spring.”

“Twenty? Laurent,” Damianos said with a sigh this time.

“Is that all you wanted? I’ve told you about myself. It wasn’t fun so I very much assume you regret your long journey out here just to hear such sadness, but it is my life.”

The wind was howling outside, blowing snow off of the cabin roof, blowing it off of the trees to join the piles already on the ground.

“You must be lonely,” Damianos said, his eyes trained outside.

“I’ve managed.”

“Laurent,” Damianos repeated for what seemed to be the hundredth time since he learned the Witch’s name. “Laurent, why do you stay here?”

“Magic has a bad name everywhere. I know what they say about me, about those like me, across the continent. What should I do? Try to fit in with society only to eventually be outed and ran out once more or, worse, killed?”

“People say what they think they know to be true. If you show them otherwise by —”

“By healing? By performing good deeds? What is it you think I’ve been doing the last odd something years? I’m still hated. I’m still feared.”

“Then come back with me,” Damianos said, leaning forward in the chair. “Come with me to Ios. Be part of Akielos. Live in the palace, I can ensure nothing bad comes of you.”

“Your people will not take kindly to a witch living alongside the King and Prince,” Laurent rebuffed.

“My people will listen to my father and I, the two people you saved. We are indebted to you. Let us, let me, do this for you.”

“Other kingdoms may look at me as a weapon of war,” Laurent said. “That war you’ve worked so desperately to avoid may occur anyway.”

“You will never see a battlefield. We may ask you to heal if you could should we ever go to war, but I would never ask of you to use your power to benefit us unfairly. We Akielons are not like that.”

“What about —”

“Laurent! Please. Selfishly I ask this of you. Come back to Ios. Live in Ios. Live surrounded by people and life and experience once again what it is like to be with those that adore you, not fear you.”

“Damianos,” Laurent said, standing. “This makes no sense. None at all.”

“Why not?”

“I am a witch, a being of misunderstood magic. You are a prince, set on path to be King. Please look at the picture we make. This is silly. This is the unchecked notion of jubilation for I have assisted you and your kingdom. I understand you’re appreciative and I don’t regret what I’ve done. But you must see this doesn’t make sense.”

Damianos stood too, walked to stand behind Laurent who had turned to stare at the dancing flames in the hearth.

“None of your cards have been wrong before. Not for me, and I doubt for anyone else. It was not a coincidence the card of the Lovers was meant to fall into my hands as I found myself falling for you.” He put a hand on the subtle curve of Laurent’s hip, felt him melt a little. “Allow me this. Allow yourself this if you want it. If you don’t, that’s a different story, and tell me now and I’ll —”

Laurent turned into the circle of his arms.

The fire was behind him now and Damianos knew its flames were reflected in his own brown eyes. It was too much and not enough at once, having Laurent so close again, and he found himself in familiar fashion waiting for the right time to breathe.

“If you mean this, I ask one thing of you.” Laurent’s hands were fisted in Damianos’ cloak as though fearful the Prince would disappear at any moment.

“Anything.”

“Actually, two things.”

“Anything.”

“They’re two things you have already given me before.”

“Of course.”

“I need time. Time to figure out what to do with my cabin, time to create a schedule for I will have to return here at times, and time to come up with a plan to escape Ios, Akielos, and the continent if I need to ever.” Damianos opened his mouth, but Laurent cut him off. “I must do this, and you must not know of it. It is the only way I will be comfortable in guaranteeing my own survival. Perhaps one day…” he trailed. “But not now.”

“And the second thing?

“One kiss,” Laurent answered with his own smile.

“Oh,” Damianos said, voice low, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that for you.”

Laurent immediately went to pull back, confusion evident on his face. Damianos held on a little tighter.

“I can’t just give you one kiss. Perhaps a million instead.”

***

Over a year had gone by since the end of the infamous trial in Ios.

Akielos was in the crux of summer, its temperatures high and the sun always blazing. Crown Prince Damianos was dripping in sweat. He’d been out in the always-blazing sun since the early hours of the morning, training with his men. It felt good, truly, the bone deep exhaustion of many days of hard work, and the men were in better shape than ever, their lines steady and their form impeccable.

It was good for the soldiers to have their Prince train with them. It made them feel as though their hard work was not for the sole protection of the royals, but for the kingdom, a place that they all wished to keep safe. Damianos knew this, and had made it a point to train with the men more in the last years. But it wasn’t the main reason he was training today; actually, it wasn’t the main reason he was training at all this week.

Selfishly, the Crown Prince was training to keep his mind from wandering to Laurent who was currently back in the Northern Steppes, collecting ingredients, retrieving more of his books, and escaping the summer heat if only for a while.

Yes, the Witch had become part of Akielos in such a way that it still seemed surreal. The citizens were nervous at first as word that the Witch would be living in the palace got out to them all, but the people of Akielos were not near as hard-set as the Vaskians nor as twisted as the Veretians; when King Theomedes stood before the city of Ios to explain in detail how Laurent had saved them all, they welcomed him into their kingdom with the most open of arms.

Laurent could not walk around Ios without being stopped by a hundred people. Children ran to him, begging to see magic tricks and delighting as coins vanished and reappeared, as apples turned to butterflies, as his blue eyes changed hue to green to purple to brown and to yellow. Those working booths at the markets asked about potion ingredients, asked if they had anything he would ever need, and made certain he knew to come to him should he ever find himself searching for a particular plant or herb. Some of the older women, who had came quickly to the conclusion Laurent was here alone for he had no family, had taken to mothering the Witch who didn’t quite know what to do with such an outpouring of affection.

Several — and several meant far more than several — men had taken to Laurent as well, trying their best to woo over the striking being now walking their sandy streets. One man, a merchant, had proposed with a cart full of silks and gold-printed fabrics only to be left quite disappointed when Laurent magicked his own silks and gold-printed fabrics of much richer color. Another man, a blacksmith, had made an impressive sapphire-stoned scepter to hone tangible magic through. The man’s gift was welcome and Laurent was polite as he declined, but offered to buy the gift still for it was very beautiful. Yet another man, a drunk, had been less polite in his soliciting and found himself instead dangling over the palace cliffs that overlooked the ocean.

Luckily for the Prince and the Witch, the two of them only had eyes for one another. Since Laurent’s arrival in Ios, they had been near inseparable, taking time apart only for duties the other simply could not attend, such as some of Damianos’ court meetings and Laurent’s witchly activities of incantations, readings, and other still unknown things to Damianos.

Despite their inseparability, the romance did not begin right away. Attraction had clearly been present, had been something Damianos couldn’t help but think about as he thought of the blond but a hallway away at night, but Laurent had initially had a hard enough time accepting that his presence in Akielos wasn’t just a trick to put him in chains or kill him, let alone accepting that he was wanted in ways that extended far beyond that. Damianos was patient, did all he could to show Laurent how much both he and his people wanted him there, to show Laurent how much _he_ wanted him, and Laurent, when finally ready to believe that, crawled into Damianos’ bed and pressed against him to sleep.

Now though, Damianos was impatient in his want. He wanted Laurent in his — it was theirs now, but Laurent hadn’t quite gotten around to calling it that — bed right now, wanted to lie there with the breeze rolling over them, wanted to talk about nothing and everything, wanted to watch Laurent create light from his fingertips and trace the patterns of the constellations right above their heads. But Laurent wasn’t here, wouldn’t be back until sometime late next week, and —

Damianos stopped at the entrance of the palace.

Laurent was leaning on one of the stone pillars, back in a crisp white chiton, all of which lately seemed to be shorter and shorter, and smiling at him with a flushed face.

“It’s getting harder to leave and even harder to stay from here,” Laurent said.

“You weren’t supposed to be back until next week.”

“Am I disrupting your plans?” Laurent asked, eyebrow raised. Damianos grinned, wiped at the sweat spilling down his temple.

“You’re quite lucky I’m a considerate person,” he started, “for in any other moment I would pull you to me in a horribly embarrassing public display. But I need to bathe, so you’re free from such a thing. For now.”

“Bathe? I’ll join you.”

At the baths, Laurent sent away the servants who listened truly with the nod of Damianos’ head. In the summer, the water was kept cool, with a warmer spring off to the side, and Damianos watched, enraptured as Laurent unpinned his chiton before pulling at the string on the side. The white fell to the floor in a puddle, leaving the Witch in nothing. When he felt Damianos’ stare, he walked toward the Prince almost predatorily.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked. His fingers were already toying with the pin at Damianos’ shoulder.

“I was mostly admiring the view.”

Laurent never broke eye contact as he undid Damianos’ chiton in the same fashion he had undone his own. Only when both were on the ground, second thoughts to anything else anymore, did Laurent link their fingers and walk into the water. Immediately Damianos felt some of the heat trapped in his body from the sun’s rays disappear. He wouldn’t be surprised if the water had absorbed it and warmed a degree.

“How was your journey? How was the cabin?” Damianos asked after they had settled.

“It was good. It was all good. Gus loved being back in the snow,” Laurent said, referring to his cat that had, of course, taken over the palace since arriving. Even Theomedes bowed to the cat as he passed it in the halls doing whatever it pleased. “But. It’s lonely there. It is only nice for but a day or so. After that --”

“You miss me?” Damianos teased.

“Yes.”

The confession was so serious and vulnerable that Damianos couldn’t not look down at Laurent’s face, only to find him already looking up.

“I still find it unbelievable to be in this place. To not fear the person that knocks on my door. To feel wanted. In a multitude of ways too.” The flush on his face was still there, but now it was from speaking and not from the heat. “I don’t tell you enough how grateful I am for your invitation to bring me here. I also don’t tell you enough how stupid that was because you definitely should not make a habit of inviting witches into your home. But I am grateful. I wake up everyday feeling as though this could vanish at any moment for it’s so perfect, like a dream.”

“Laurent.”

Damianos couldn’t not put both hands on Laurent’s face, couldn’t not brush his blond hair from in front of his eyes, couldn’t not sweep his thumbs underneath the spot where eyelashes fell, couldn’t not press a kiss to his forehead, his nose, ever so gently on his mouth. Laurent’s hands came up to cover Damianos’ own, turning his head to press his own ever so gentle kiss on Damianos’ palm.

“I promise you I came out with the better deal when I met you than the other way around,” Damianos said. Laurent laughed, leaned further into Damianos’ warm touch.

“You’re quite wrong. You have offered to me priceless things since the day we met.”

“Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

“You are the most priceless thing.”

“That’s so mawkish. Beyond mawkish actually.”

“I can top that.”

“Oh, can you?”

“Yeah. Are you ready?”

“Most definitely.”

“I offer to you one last thing in hopes to entice you to stay here forever.”

“If you say your heart, I’m leaving. Going back to the cabin and burying myself in the snow.”

“No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“Laurent. The Witch of Vere. I offer you everything.”

“Damianos.”

“Yes.”

“Quit talking and finish bathing so you can take me to bed.”

That night, Laurent drew constellations above their heads, his right leg thrown over Damianos’ waist.

Everyone across the continent knew of the Witch of Vere. But not everyone agreed on what was truth and what was fiction regarding his existence. Now though, Damianos didn’t care any longer what was agreed upon for now he knew the truth. He tightened his hold around Laurent just a little more and Laurent, almost as if sensing what Damianos was thinking about, intertwined their fingers.

With his free hand, Laurent, with magic kissing his fingertips, drew above them a heart.

**Author's Note:**

> started this in september of 2019, but had to put it on the backburner as i was writing my RBB. forgot about it. revisted it a year later and added about 18k to it. 
> 
> thank you so very much for reading, and thank you to the crowd on discord that got my mind thinking about it again ❤ i apologize once more that it's not scary. but i hope it's still acceptable lol
> 
> also, regarding the tarot: i don't have much experience with tarot cards. i used the major arcana deck for this, looked at how they were used in 'penny dreadful,' and read a lot of card descriptors on some tarot card websites that i was recced to by a friend of mine that has a history with all things witchery 
> 
> laurent's witchery was inspired by the cut-wife and vanessa ives on 'penny dreadful.' the burning of the map is based off of a scene of 'supernatural' where the demon ruby does this to find dean in an episode in season 4.


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